La Verna, 17th September 2026
Feast of the Stigmata of St. Francis
Dear Brothers,
May the Lord give you peace!
I am writing to you on the day when, more than eight hundred years ago, here on La Verna, the Lord impressed on St Francis' body the signs of his Passion. From those wounds to the Transitus, which we will celebrate in a few weeks, there is only one journey: that of a man who has left Christ the last word on his life.
I wish to reach out to each one of you — postulants, novices, and temporary professed — thinking of your faces and the questions you carry in your hearts. You are the young face of the Order. Through you, the Lord continues to call men who desire to live the Gospel in the form that the Lord revealed to Francis.
Celebrating the Transitus does not only mean remembering the day of St Francis' death. It means contemplating a life entirely handed over. After having followed the path of the Gospel to the end, St Francis enters into the Father's embrace. For this reason, the Transitus does not belong only to the past: it indicates the goal towards which every Friar Minor walks. Not success, not prestige, but full communion with God.
The legacy that St Francis leaves to his brothers is not a program or an organisation, but the Gospel lived, his blessing and a fraternity. That is what you receive today.
Read the full text of the Letter:
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